Since the early 1990s, Pyongyang-watchers have insisted the country's demise was just around the corner. That they've been so consistently wrong might say as much about the outside world as it does about North Korea.

The still-disputed accusations of French professor's alleged links to the 1994 killings, and the Obama administration's decision to finally cut aid to the post-genocide government, are reminders of this terrible event's power to still effect events today.

Less than a year after declaring independence, a border state in the new African country is troubled by the return of hundreds of thousands of war refugees and a deteriorating relationship with the north.